BEVERLY HILL(BILLIES), CA – Fred Willard the beloved PBS television personality and a star of Every Body Loves Raymond, isn't as beloved as he used to be, it seems, either with his former employer or with anyone else. Reduced, largely by age, to expressions of “self-love” (i. e., masturbation), he was fired recently for practicing “lewd conduct upon himself” in a Hollywood “adult” theater.

PBS President Paula Kerger said, “I don't care what the pervert does on his own time, as long as his conduct doesn't overshadow our interests at PBS.”

Clearly, she believes that Willard's masturbatory hijinks did just that. “He's more concerned with the welfare of his libido than he is with the welfare of Market Warriors, our new show, which, before he started thinking with his penis instead of his brain—if, in fact, he has a brain—he had been scheduled to narrate.”

Willard's firing had “nothing to do with the fact that he was watching gayporn,” Willard insisted, not wanting to alienate her station's largely homosexual audience.

Since Willard's arrest, he has been replaced by Mark Wahlberg, the host of Antiques Roadshow, who voluntarily underwent emasculation to prevent the likelihood of his ever succumbing to Willard's “temptations.”

“It's hard to maintain an erection,” Wahlberg acknowledged, “when you don't have any balls.”

Although, the new host admitted, some might consider the requirement of the audition that he undergo castration both sexist and extreme, he maintained that “It's worth it.” Market Warriors, he said, “is expected to do as well, or better than, Roadshow. It's all good.”

Willard has advised Wahlberg “not to count his testicles before they're hatched.” According to one of his many admirers at the Los Angeles City Attorney's office, PBS may have to restore the former host's job if Willard completes a “diversion program for self-sex offenders.” The cost of the program is “a measly $380,” Willard said, “or about the price of admission to 38 gay movies.”

If Willard is reinstated, Kerger promises, “PBS will do what we can to have Mark's testicles reinstalled, too, although he may have to settle for a pair of prostheses.”